Comparable to a Semi-Pro Hockey Player

New Year's Resolution 2011:  Actually be selfish once in a while and do things for myself, just for myself.

I'm not trying to pretend that I'm a saint at all.  I'm not.  I am a people pleaser.  About the only people who I've built up a tolerance to attempting to please mercilessly are my husband, my parents, and my brother.  I have varying tolerances for everyone else, on a scale dependent on how well I know you.  If I just met you, I will drop anything and everything to make you request come true.  That comes from being in the hospitality industry for too long.  Close friends run the closest chance of hearing me say no, although I very rarely do, because they are the ones that come up with the best ideas.

But I am a people pleaser.  It seems to be my god given talent.  I wish I had a different one.  If I had been better at math, I probably would be making more money now then what I am.

Realizing that I needed to work on finding myself again this year included the realization that I needed to be selfish.  I needed to do things for myself, just for myself, even when I should be doing something else.  At least every once in a while. 

Yesterday provided me with such an opportunity.  Kendall was home sick for most of the day and our house was a mess to boot.  It was a day that should have been spent disinfecting, ridding the entire house of the ickiness that is chased me away from my own bed last night.  I got as far as the bathrooms and bedroom.  Mopping the floor and vacuuming were in sight.  But then I got a phone call.  It seemed that God was interfering.

There had been a cancellation at the massage parlor and they could get me in at 3:15. 

I am a sucker for a massage.  I got hooked on them when I did a study abroad in Thailand.  They were so cheap over there, maybe $10 a hour, often with the massage happening by the ocean.  Bliss! I think I had at least four or five in the month that I was over there. 

However, my always tight budget often has not allowed me to spend the money I would like on getting a massage as often as I would like.  For a while, I did make sure that I got one at least once, up to two to three times a year, always after predictable, super stressful event days. 

I needed a massage after these days because like most people pleasers, I internalize my stress.  When stressed, I tighten up every fiber of my being, pulling and twisting myself inside to just get through the next over dramatized emergency, and unintentionally create knots that feel like they were the size of golf balls in my shoulders and neck.

My annual to quarterly massages were all before we got married and moved to Fort Collins, when my money was still just my money.  But when we got married, I suddenly took on this thought process that because our family budget tightened when Kendall began grad school, I had to let go of almost all of my indulgences.  Kendall never said anything of the sort, I just came up with this preposterous thought on my own.  So, for almost two years, out the window went visits to an Aveda hair dresser, massages, and shopping at places like Express, J. Crew, or Banana Republic.  Instead, I went to a beauty school, shopped at Target and Kohl's, and dropped massages all together.

Dropping the massages was probably the worst indulgence to leave behind because my high stress job was knitting the thick, worn and torn muscles of my back into a mass of knots, the kind that lead to headaches and migraines.  On particularly bad weeks, Kendall would rub and knead his knuckles into the granddaddy of them all, lodged just underneath my left shoulder blade.  This bad boy would just move side to side and never dissipate, no matter how long Kendall pushed and prodded at it, or how I stretched and pulled on it.  We could not work it out, even together.  I knew that this knot was to stay until I got professional help. 

You can imagine my delight when my new boss gave me an hour massage for a holiday gift in December.  The world was realigning itself for me again.  I had a wonderfully less stressful job that I loved, a boss who was wonderfully in tune to how to make employees happy, and I WOULD BE GETTING A MASSAGE IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!!!!  (My excitement in that moment to the massage truly can only be expressed correctly with all capital letters and five explanation marks).

I had called last week to set an appointment for President's Day since I had it off as a paid holiday (A PAID HOLIDAY!!!).  Unfortunately, the massage parlor was all booked.  I put my name on the list for them to call in case of a cancellation.  I forgot about that request and made other responsible plans for the day.  I was all set to take care of my sick husband and finish cleaning.  The floors were calling out to me. I literally had the bucket in hand.  But so was the massage parlor, literally calling out to me... Mopping quickly got shelved.  (Dust bunnies dreams and icky germs crawling all over my household be damned!)

This was the moment, the return to relaxation, that I had been so excited for.  And it was not so much.  It was downright painful. Blissfully painful, but short on the relaxation.

Remember that knot under my left shoulder blade that I had be building up for about two, two and a half years.  My massage therapist worked on it for a half hour straight.  She didn't just rub it.  She was having me "help her work through it" by creating swimming motions, lifting my body and arms in similar fashion to the crawl, butterfly, and breast stroke, while working her palms and elbows deep into the muscle, only to have that damn knot push back from side to side.  She held my shoulder blade with her left hand, working and rolling the fingers of her right onto and over the thing as hard as I could possibly stand.  It was the most technical massage that I had ever received, it felt glorious, and it still was getting no where on my body.

Finally, Jessie (the massage therapist) gave a deep sigh, similar to the ones that she was having me do as she pushed harder, and harder on the muscle, until she hit that "feel-so-good-hurt" (as she described it). 

"You know," came a slightly confused, exasperated voice.  "You've got a lot going on in this spot.  It reminds me of a client that I have that plays for the Colorado Eagles.  His back was in knots like this, and to be honest, it took me probably five sessions before I could work them all out.  And, honestly, I think you may be worse then he was....so what do you say that we give your back a rest and move on?"

For those of you who do not know, the Colorado Eagles is Northern Colorado's semi-pro hockey team.  They are all bad asses.  They win division titles.  They get into five to six fights per game.  Most of them are between the ages of 18 and 25.  In my opinion, a 28 year old woman (or specifically, this 28 year old woman) should not be compared to a semi-pro hockey player of this caliber in any shape or form.  I'm pretty sure that by the hesitancy in Jessie's voice, that she felt kind of bad saying it.  I'm also pretty sure that she didn't mean it as a sales pitch either, just as a way to relay her frustration.  But being compared to whichever bad ass brute of a player this was, hit this message home:

I need to spoil myself.  Cutting back on personal pleasures so drastically only made things worse off for me in the long run. Lesson learned.

Although my muscles are very much sore today, it's not Jessie's fault.  It is a "feel-so-good hurt".  I would recommend her (she knows what she's doing), I will return, and I am looking forward to the return of the quarterly massages and that some day, these knots will have un-worked themselves. And I am most thankful for the physically painful realization that is allowing me to let go, unwind a bit, and be just a 28 year old woman who should only to be compared to other very amateur athletes on the kickball field or snowboarding down a mountain.